KHEPERA: A System for Rapid Implementation of Domain Specific Languages

The Khepera system is a toolkit for the rapid implementation and long-term maintenance of domain speci c languages (DSLs). Our viewpoint is that DSLs are most easily implemented via source-tosource translation from the DSL into another language and that this translation should be based on simple parsing, sophisticated tree-based analysis and manipulation, and source generation using prettyprinting techniques. Khepera emphasizes the use of familiar, pre-existing tools and provides support for transformation replay and debugging for the DSL processor and end-user programs. In this paper, we present an overview of our approach, including implementation details and a short example.